Airline passenger Hossam Shalaby, from Egypt, waits for his rescheduled flight to Orlando this week, under the departure board showing hundreds of cancellations at Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport.

NEW YORK — The relentless snow and ice storms this winter have led to the highest number of flight cancellations in more than 25 years, according to an analysis by The Associated Press.

U.S. airlines have canceled more than 75,000 domestic flights since Dec. 1, including more than 14,000 this week. That’s 5.5 percent of the 1.37 million flights scheduled during that period, according calculations based on information provided by flight tracking site FlightAware.

It’s the highest total number and highest percent of cancellations since at least the winter of 1987-1988, when the Department of Transportation first started collecting cancellation data.

The nation’s air traffic system was still recovering Friday from the latest bout of bad weather. Flights were taking off again but thousands of passengers weren’t.

“This year is off to a brutal start for airlines and travelers,” says FlightAware CEO Daniel Baker. “Not only is each storm causing tens of thousands of cancellations, but there’s been a lot of them.”

And February still has two weeks left.

Mother Nature isn’t entirely to blame. A mix of cost-cutting measures and new government regulations has made airlines more likely to cancel flights and leave fliers scrambling to get to their destination.

There were days this week where more than 70 percent of flights were canceled in Baltimore, Philadelphia, Washington D.C. and Charlotte, N.C. Even typically warm — or at least warmer — weather cities were not immune. The world’s busiest airport, Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport, was paralyzed Wednesday by ice and snow.

Bradley Voight, 25, was one of those passengers trapped in Atlanta after his Spirit Airlines flight to Ft. Lauderdale, Fla. Wednesday was canceled. After a night sleeping in the airport, he eventually got home late Thursday.

“It was fun because of the people I met, but it was terrible because of why I met them,” he noted Friday.

Making things worse for travelers this winter, airlines have been cutting unprofitable flights and packing more passengers into planes. That’s been great for their bottom line but has created a nightmare for passengers whose flights are canceled due to a storm. Other planes are too full to easily accommodate the stranded travelers. Many must wait days to secure a seat on another flight.

Carol Cummings, 23, was trying to fly Thursday on United Airlines from the Washington D.C. area to Los Angeles to visit a high school friend for the long Presidents Day weekend. The flight was canceled and Cummings was automatically rebooked for a flight on Monday — the day she was supposed to return home. After two and a half hours on hold, United offered to move the trip to another weekend — for an extra $150 — or to refund her ticket.

“I am annoyed and surprised at the lack of customer concern I experienced,” she says.” Cummings is waiting for her refund.

This winter is even more painful than 2000-2001, when 66,000 — or 4.2 percent of December, January and February scheduled flights — were scrapped.

(Official statistics won’t be released for another two months but FlightAware’s figures have been historically in line with the government’s data.)

“As an industry, you are prepared for bad weather but I’m not sure if you are ready for this many events back to back,” says Savanthi Syth, an airline analyst with Raymond James.

Passengers weren’t prepared either.

“It’s extremely exhausting. I feel like a walking zombie,” says Colleen Hoover, 52, who arrived at Miami International Airport at 9 a.m. Wednesday. She was originally scheduled to fly from St. Croix in the Virgin Islands to Philadelphia, but her flight was re-routed to Puerto Rico and eventually Miami.